


"I don't have cooties, I promise"

by nimiumcaelo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Asexual Mike Wheeler, Asexual Character, Asexuality, F/M, Gay Will Byers, Happy Will Byers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mike realizing that he's not actually into that sort of thing, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Will trying to deal with emotions, all the drama, background Nancy Wheeler/Jonathan Byers, but only a little bit of the implied/ref'd homophobia, shit i'm bad at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:36:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimiumcaelo/pseuds/nimiumcaelo
Summary: Mike isn't actually all that interested in dating. Sure, he'd kissed Eleven, but that was different, right? He was trying it out. Now everyone has assumptions and he isn't quite sure how to deal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments motivate me so much, so if you liked it please leave a message!  
> (Also, I wrote another Mike/Will story -- just a oneshot, but still -- and you can check it out [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13069839).)

It didn’t happen all at once. There was no stabbing realization, no light-bulb moment, no flash of clarity where there once had only been darkness. No, this was the sort of thing that crept up on you, slowly – so slowly in fact, that most times you forgot it was even there, and when you forget that something’s there, and other people tell you it isn’t, that you’re just making things up – well, then where are you?

Mike didn’t often like to think about it, and honestly most of the time it never came up, but he wasn’t really the same as most of the other kids his age. That’s not to say he didn’t like D&D or ice cream, and he certainly wasn’t as different as El or even Will, but there was something about him that other people just didn’t have, or maybe it was the other way around. Something was different and until he could figure out what that different thing was, he was kind of stuck.

See, Mike wasn’t really into the whole dating thing – either with himself or seeing other people do it. He’d kissed El, and that was nice, yeah, but he wouldn’t want to do it again. He especially didn’t want to hold hands or kiss people on the cheek or any of that mushy shit that people like Mary from third grade had wanted to do. She’d come up to him and told him she liked him, and he’d said he liked her too (of course he did, they were friends) and then the whole school knew they had “dated.”

Mike never really bothered to correct them, mostly because it just wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. It wasn’t very important and thinking about it only made it worse. So, he let them talk and giggle about him and Mary, but he knew deep down what the truth was and it certainly wasn’t what they were whispering.

Then, middle school happened. At first, crushes and dating and all that were restricted to the girls and it was normal and expected for Mike to not want to do that stuff. Now, though, something had hit the sixth-grade population and everyone – even the boys – was obsessed with romance. It mostly just puzzled Mike, but it also made him a bit… annoyed.

Mike had watched his sister Nancy go through boys like changes of clothes, trying them on and twirling in front of the mirror before deciding they didn’t fit just quite right and tossing them aside. That was normal, for her; the expectations for Nancy were different than those for Mike. His parents often talked about how they had met, too, but that also wasn’t something they thought Mike would do – at least not for a while. Their romance had happened fumblingly in college while his mother worked in the dining hall and his father was so flustered that he dropped his tray of food on her shoes. They had dated for a while and then married and then had kids and then settled, as all people do, into the La-Z-Boy of middle age. Mike accepted their idiosyncrasies with the same grace that he accepted his mother’s opinions on how many peas you had to eat and how many wrinkles were too many and things like that. Most of the time, he ignored them.

Yet there were always times when he couldn’t push this feeling of _different_ away.  He grimaced at kissing scenes in his parents’ movies and he scoffed when people talked about their crushes and he teased Nancy mercilessly when he saw her kiss Jonathan on Christmas. Still, people mostly accepted this because he was a boy and most boys weren’t supposed to like that stuff, right? But something was still off.

Since nobody seemed to be able to notice, Mike shoved his disgust in people’s faces. He did this a lot, until everyone just gave up and didn’t talk to him about that stuff anymore. Lucas quit talking about the girls he liked, Dustin quit gushing over his latest romantic plot-line creation, and Will – well, Will had never really bothered him in the first place. They finally were able to tell that Mike was different.

But they still didn’t understand.

  
>>><<<

  
Mike slumped on the couch, frowning at yet another family movie his mom and dad had picked out for Friday movie night. His arms were folded and he gave little grunts of disgust whenever the leading man and leading lady smiled at each other or kissed or declared their love or started a family. Eventually, his mother got fed up with him and told him to shut up and let her enjoy her movie. He frowned deeper and wished he could be anywhere but here.  
The phone rang.  
Mike got up quickly, glad for the excuse to leave the over-stuffed couch. “I’ve got it!”  
His dad nodded, thanking him quietly, eyes glued to the screen. Mike skidded in his socks down the hallway to the phone and picked it up with almost a sigh of relief.  
“Hello, Wheeler residence, this is Mike speaking,” he half-droned into the mouthpiece.  
“Hey, Mike,” Dustin’s voice came like an angel to his tortured soul. “I was wondering if you were busy right now?”  
“No, not at all,” Mike answered just a bit too quickly. “Why?”  
“I got a movie out from the library and I was wondering if you wanted to watch it.”  
“Cool. What movie?”  
“’E.T.’”  
“Oh, that again?”  
“It’s cool!”  
Mike sighed. Dustin had invited them over to watch ‘E.T.’ at least four times already and Mike was getting pretty sick of it.  
The sounds of his parents’ movie drifted in from the den and Mike made his decision.  
“Yeah, sure, I’ll come over. Just gimme a sec.”  
Mike called out to his parents. “Hey, Dustin just invited me over can I go?”  
His mom sighed irritably. “Yes, fine. But be back before ten, Mike!”  
“Thanks!”  
Mike grabbed his jacket and shoes and practically skipped out the door as his father “aww”-ed at another scene.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Will moments in this chapter, too.

“Hey, man,” Dustin greeted as he opened to door to let Mike in from the slight February chill. “Thanks for coming.”  
“Yeah, no problem,” Mike shot him a smile as he pulled off his jacket and followed Dustin into the living room. The movie was already set up and – Lucas was there, as well. Mike paused.  
“Where’s Will?”  
“Oh – I called, he couldn’t make it,” Dustin replied, pulling over a bowl of popcorn. “Something with his brother, I think.”  
“Oh, okay.”  
Mike sat down and settled into the couch beside his two friends. This was much better than movie night with his parents.

>>><<<

Will was sitting on his bedroom floor, back against his bed, hands clutching a pencil to his chest. Yes, he was being dramatic – no, he didn’t really care. Mike had given him the pencil – well, let him borrow it, that is – and it was the only thing he had right now that had touched Mike Wheeler in the past twenty-four hours besides himself.  
He sighed dreamily.  
During math class, Will had been trying to stare subtly at Mike and hadn’t realized that he had been leaning heavily on his pencil. It broke in half with a loud _crack!_ and Mike had quickly glanced at him just as Will glanced away.  
Mike dug out an extra pencil from his bag and handed it to Will, their fingers brushing. Will felt like he was in one of those cheesy movies he’d watched over at Mike’s house with Mike’s parents. Mike’s quick half-smile before turning back to the teacher was enough to sustain Will’s soft pastel daydreams as he let his head spill back onto his bed and traced the swirls in the ceiling paint with his eyes.  
So, naturally, when Dustin had called and asked him if he could come over and hang out, he had to say no. Of course he couldn’t actually see Mike right now – he’d crack just like the pencil.  
Mike was tall, dark, and handsome. His hair had that I-don’t-know-what about it that made it so – touchable.  
Will curled his hand through the air in front of himself, imaging it rifling through Mike’s hair.

>>><<<

Mike stretched his feet out in front of him, sinking lower in the couch cushions. Lucas was leaning his chin on his fist, elbow propped against the arm of the couch, and Dustin mirrored his position on Mike’s other side.  
The colors of the television gave a dead appearance to the kids’ faces as they sat, watching, smiling. Mike briefly wondered what Will was doing and whether Jonathan was telling him about any more music. Will had sat Mike down in Jonathan’s room several times and played all his favorite songs – twice. Mike grinned a little at the memory. Will was something.  
The movie ended and Lucas and Mike left Dustin’s house with a quiet goodbye. Dustin thanked them and closed the door, keeping in the warm air.  
“Man, next time he asks if we want to watch that I’m saying no,” Lucas commented as they pushed off on their bikes. Mike smiled.  
“Yeah.”  
Lucas and Mike stayed on the same road for about a block, then separated. Mike wheeled off to his house, dark hair swimming in the same inky blackness that the stars danced in above him. The chill in the air lifted off the ground and prickled at his chin and nose.  
Cresting a little hill, he pushed his feet faster and sped into the wind.

>>><<<

The next day, the sun knocked on the window with silent fingers, rousing the birds who could hear the light. Will let the Saturday morning lift him out of dreams and came back to his bed with just the fading breath of a memory left in him – dark and light and sweaters.  
He could hear Jonathan talking to his mom in the kitchen, something inconsequential about what was on the news last night. Pushing off the hug of his blanket, Will stood up and left to the bathroom.  
He washed his hands in the cold water and watched the blood flush his knuckles. Feeling a bit of vertigo, Will paused, the water rushing down into the drain and flooding his ears with sound. Socked feet walked towards the bathroom door and his mother’s voice called out to him.  
“Will, honey, you in there?” she asked.  
“Yeah,” Will choked out. “I’m here.”  
“You okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m good.”  
“Okay, sweetie, just checking. There’s breakfast ready when you are.”  
“Okay, thanks.”  
Will watched his face in the mirror, wondering if there was any possibility that Mike’s eyes might see something more than his own did.

>>><<<

Mike woke up when he rolled out of bed, falling onto the ground with a thump. His breath coming rapid, he groped around uselessly in his mind for the edges of the dream he’d been having. Two or three hard blinks cleared the fog and he crawled to his feet.  
After dressing and brushing his teeth and all that, Mike walked into the kitchen, skirting just out of eyesight of his dad, who was sitting with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Mike put some toast in the toaster and gave a hesitant look to his father, who still hadn’t noticed him.  
The water was running in the shower and the tinny sounds of Nancy singing floated downstairs. Mike felt half like mocking his sister and half fond in that way that siblings are of each other sometimes.  
His toast popped up and he plated it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, I honestly forgot about this story.  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> \-- M


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike goes over to Will's house. Will has decided something.

“Morning,” Mike said as he sat down at the table, across and one seat away from his dad. Mr. Wheeler looked up, somewhat startled.  
“Oh, good morning, Mike,” he replied, voice blank like his eyes, which turned back to his newspaper brusquely. Mike kept his gaze firmly on his toast.  
He suddenly had a rush of indignation. Will’s mom never ignored him. Hell, Will wouldn’t ignore Mike if he had a chance. Mike decided he was going to ditch this popsicle stand ASAP and head over to Will’s. At least there he’d feel like he mattered.  
He had just finished his toast and was running upstairs to grab some socks when his mother admonished him for running in the house and made him take out the trash. After that menial and annoying chore was through, though, Mike slipped on a coat and headed out, stepping on the grass crunchy with frost.  
When he arrived at Will’s house, his ears had turned a bright red from the chill, but it wasn’t so bad because it matched the cherry in his nose just perfectly. Mike huffed a little into his hands and rubbed them together as he waited for someone to come to the door.

>>><<<

Will was sitting at the table, scooping up slightly-soggy Lucky Charms out of his bowl. The spoon clacked against his teeth and he was hit with a jolt of repulsion. Placing the spoon back in the bowl, he took a deep breath. He had plans for the day.  
After the admittedly embarrassing dramatics of last night, Will had decided something: he had to let Mike know just how much he meant to him. Jonathan had told Will about pining for Nancy and Will knew how bad it would get if he never said anything. Letting Mike know was the best option, really.  
So he was going to head over to Mike’s house, strut on up to the door, and – well, he hadn’t quite figured out that part yet. Probably something like kiss him or talk to him or grab his hand or whatever.  
Oh, the thought of Mike’s hand in his – Will let a soft little smile steal its way onto his face. His mom looked up from her book and smiled back at him.  
Hearing the doorbell ring, her face turned away from her son.  
“I’ll go get it, honey,” she told him as Will’s eyes startled. She walked away with a gentle rub to Will’s shoulder that grounded him and kept him from floating away in daydreams.  
He could hear his mom’s voice from down the hall.  
“Hey, Mike! How are you?”  
“I’m good, Mrs. Byers. Is Will up?”  
“Yes, he’s eating breakfast. Do you want to come in?”  
“Yeah, thanks.”  
By some miracle, the blush that had frightened onto Will’s face when he heard Mike’s voice drifting in had managed to dissipate by the time Mike actually entered the room. Will felt ridiculous; this was his best friend! He should really be cooler about the whole thing. Oh, well…

>>><<<

Mike pulled out the chair next to Will’s and sat down.  
“Hey,” he said blandly, scratching a little at his nose.  
“Hey.” Will took a nearly too-large bite of his cereal and swallowed it quickly. Mike gave him a look, half-smile cocked and eyebrows jumped just a little.  
“How was the movie last night? Sorry I couldn’t go.” Will’s sweet hazel eyes pinned on Mike’s in a sort of anxiety.  
“Oh, you know – E.T.,” Mike said, as if those two syllables would explain everything. Will smiled and seemed relieved.  
“Oh, okay. I was worried it was something important.”  
“Nah,” Mike drawled, leaning back a little in his chair. Will’s mom came back and sat down at the table, biting absentmindedly at a half-toasted piece of bread. “Just Dustin.”  
Will gave a little giggle.  
“Yeah, I was – um – busy last night, so.”  
“Yeah. Well, you know – it’s fine.”  
Will was about to take another scoop of cereal when he realized he didn’t have any left.  
“Do you want anything?” he asked Mike, referring to breakfast.  
“No, I already ate. Thanks, though.” Mike smiled.

>>><<<

“So I was thinking we could put the reinforcements here and then have the stockpile right next to it, you know? Just in case of a heavy attack.”

Mike was sitting on the floor of Will’s bedroom with several pages torn from a notebook lying spread out before them. Will nodded pensively.

“That would make sense. And then there’d be room for the cargo hold here.” He pressed a point of the paper into the carpet. Mike is watching the layout, eyes trained on the imaginary grid underlaying all of the positions and translations. Will finds himself wishing that Mike would look at him like that, with the same unrepentant intensity.

“This is pretty good,” Mike says, looking up from the pages. His eyes are intense, but in a different way. “You didn’t do too bad.”

“Thanks,” Will breathes.

He adjusts his position on the floor, maybe-accidentally-maybe-not brushing his socked foot against Mike’s shin as he tucks his legs beneath each other.

Mike’s eyes are back on the page.

“Do you think we should move anything else?” he asks, tongue coming out to run against his lip while he thinks.

Will doesn’t care at all about the positions.

“I guess. It’s not like we’ll ever use it.”

Mike’s eyes are suddenly on his and he feels like the papers.

Will looks away.

“What do you mean? It’s good, really.”

“Oh, well – I just mean – Lucas and Dustin like ones with more monsters, right? This one is mostly adventure.”

“We don’t always need to do what _they_ like,” Mike admonished. “You can have a turn, too.”

“Oh, well.” Will doesn’t know what to say. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does.”

Will looks at him.

He hadn’t done anything yet, and today was the day he had decided on.

But when was the right moment?

“Hey, I mean it.” Mike’s voice called him back to the moment but he still didn’t look at his friend.

He found himself analyzing the faint pencil lines on the papers.

“Okay.”

“We’ll use it?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Okay, good.”

Mike smiles at him and Will smiles back.

Mike feels simple in this moment, like he doesn’t have expectations and doesn’t have complicated things to unravel and can just smile at Will and have him smile back and it’s not anything to worry about.

He feels a rush of affection for Will and is immensely grateful for the scrawny boy sitting in front of him.

Will suddenly looked different in a way Mike couldn’t quite pinpoint – oh.

He was blushing.

Why was he – ?

Mike felt his stomach drop as Will wobbled between starting to speak and leaning ever forward.

What was happening?

Was this … ?

Will bit his lip and the bullet.

He surged forward, knocking his forehead against Mike’s and then their lips touched for just a moment and then Will pulled back and froze and it all was a rush of nausea and static electricity.

Mike was blushing now, too.

His eyes were about as large as golf balls.

Will suddenly felt bad pushing himself on Mike, who probably didn’t like him anyway.

The silence only lasted about three seconds, but Will felt his heart skip a beat and those seconds lasted far longer than they had any right to.

Mike swallowed and rolled his lips in a bit, feeling very strange and a little bit cheated.

Will’s face was so open, he looked like he might cry.

Mike didn’t know what to do.

He took a breath and looked back at the papers.

“We might want to, uh,” he started, voice cracking a little and coming out hoarse. “Put the starting positions over here.”

Something in Will’s demeanor changed, but it looked just a little too much like relieved for Mike to feel bad.

“In the forest?” he asked, face still hot and uncomfortable.

Their legs no longer brushed together.

“Yeah, right by the lake.”

Mike felt sick to his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, there you go: a kiss.  
> Comments are appreciated!
> 
> \- M


	4. Chapter 4

Mike couldn’t concentrate. He had spent the rest of Saturday with Will, in about the most awkwardly tense way as possible: ignoring the situation. Sunday came, and went, and Mike couldn’t bring himself to leave the house. His fingertips were getting raw from how much he’d been picking at them.

When he’d woken up this morning, he’d been washed over by a wave of anxiety about seeing his friends that he hadn’t had since first grade. The dynamics of it were all wrong – he couldn’t – why was this happening to him?

Nancy was drawing a neat black line along her upper eyelid as she leaned against the sink, staring in the mirror to make sure it was straight. Just as she was tapering off the line, a loud thump sounded from down the hall and Nancy startled, jolting the pencil and smearing the makeup.

“Mike!” she yelled, frown pursing her lips as she wet her fingertips and tried to rectify the smudge. “Quit being so loud!”

“Quit yelling!” Mike shouted back. He had whacked his head against the wall in frustration, and wasn’t up to arguing with his sister. In about fifteen minutes it’d be time for him to head out to school, and at school he would see Will, and seeing Will meant having to deal with what had happened on Saturday.

_Shit._

 

>>><<<

 

Mike fidgeted with the sleeves of his jacket. His nose was crunched across the point where the freckles were thickest as he scanned the crowds being sucked into the school, trying to spot his friends or maybe trying not to spot them – he wasn’t quite sure, yet.

The bike rack clanged behind him as Dustin shoved his bike in.

“Hey, Mike,” Dustin greeted, clapping Mike genially on the shoulder.

Mike felt a little more at ease.

“Hey. How was your weekend?”

“Oh, you know – the usual. My mom wanted to take pictures of me and the cat, so I had to pose in this God-awful sweater with spots _and_ stripes. It was horrible.”

Mike grinned and let a little laughter spill out like melting ice-cream.

“Dude, that sounds awful,” he said, looking around one more time for Lucas and Will. Dustin did the same, their eyes moving over the girls and boys in near synchronization.

“Yeah, I told my mom I’d burn the film if I could ever find it. I think she hid it.”

“Well, don’t burn it till I can see them.”

“No way!”

“Are you telling him about the pictures?” Lucas asked, walking up from where his mom had dropped him off.

Dustin grimaced.

“Yes, and the little menace wants to _see_ them.”

“Dude, _everyone_ wants to see them.”

“See what?” Will had appeared somewhere out of the crowd as the other three made their slow way inside. Mike’s fingertips instantly found the cuffs of his sleeves and he worried at them insistently. Maybe he was blushing, maybe not – didn’t matter, really.

“Dustin took some _hilarious_ pictures with his mom this weekend,” Lucas told Will, smile wide enough to rival the Cheshire Cat. “In a sweater with both spots and stripes.”

“They make sweaters like that?” Will asked, little smile teasing at his cheeks. His eyes were mostly flicking between Lucas and Dustin – whose face was getting increasingly more flushed as the discussion went on – but he cast a startled glance at Mike like a life-saver in rough seas.

Mike didn’t look at him.

 

>>><<<

 

The pull of his awareness to Will was overwhelming. He’s always paid more attention to his friends than he should, but this was different: he almost _couldn’t_ think about anything other than the wildly strange feeling of Will kissing him and the horrible uncertainly about what they would do in the future.

Will wouldn’t look at him anymore after they walked into the building. Mike wasn’t speaking directly to him, so there wasn’t any chance to see if he would respond, but it was a little unsettling. Mike didn’t want to think he’d screwed up, even if he wasn’t the one who had changed their relationship so confusingly.

What was up with that, anyway? Mike had always thought Will was the one who wasn’t really into kissing and romance and all that shit – the one who was the most like him.

Was no one like him?

The thought hit him in fourth period and sat behind Mike’s sternum as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and stared down at his history book. Was he going to ruin this friendship because he wasn’t responding properly? But – friends weren’t even supposed to do this, right?

He glanced over at Will and couldn’t stand the sight of him. He needed to get home, get away from Will and all these thoughts and feelings and questions.

Maybe Nancy would know something about how to deal with this; she seemed to have a lot of experience with these sorts of things.

 

>>><<<

 

When Mike came home after school, he heard Nancy talking in her room, but she wasn’t alone: Jonathan was in there and it sounded like they were studying – actually studying, that is, because Jonathan wasn’t interested in failing their upcoming test in Chemistry.

Mike heard them talking, then laughing, and found himself unable to enter that room and look Jonathan in the eye. Did Jonathan know what Will had done? Would he care? Mike had always pegged Jonathan as the kind of person who would love no matter what, but there was always the possibility that he wouldn’t want his little brother to be – _that_.

So, instead, he shuffled into his bedroom and sat down in his chair, slumped posture mirroring the collapsed position of his backpack on the floor. He had so many questions, and his walkie-talkie was glaring at him from his desk – but he couldn’t talk to Will about this, he just couldn’t. He also couldn’t betray Will’s confidence by telling their friends about it.

Mike’s thoughts turned back to Will’s kiss. The act of kissing wasn’t something unpleasant in itself; it was much like a hug in that respect, depending on the person it could be either nice or not-so-nice. With Will it had been… Mike didn’t know.

“Hnnnhhh,” Mike groaned, clapping his hands to his face.

He felt terrible: he didn’t want to break Will’s heart, but he didn’t really want to kiss him again, either. This was so _hard_! Why had Will made this hard? Didn’t he know Mike didn’t like him like that?

Mike sighed. This was just like all the rants he’d heard from Nancy about some of her guy-friends who had decided to get interested in her and then had to be let down easy. Mike could do that, couldn’t he? But no, most of those guys hadn’t ever spoken to Nancy again. He couldn’t – wouldn’t do that to Will. It was too cruel.

Mike composed a sort of organizer in his head. He had two main options: 1) tell Will no and 2) tell Will yes. Option one was obviously out of the question, for the reasons he had just mentioned, and because he really didn’t know yet if he was completely in the ‘no’ camp or not. This was just too new and ambiguous to make a decision about yet.

Option two, then. This wasn’t really very desirable, though, because Mike didn’t want to kiss Will again and he didn’t want Will to kiss him again. He didn’t want to lead Will on when he didn’t actually feel that way – wouldn’t that just be worse?

This was so hard.

Okay, but, being reasonable, Mike didn’t actually think it was the worst thing in the world to kiss Will. He was his best friend, and he was pretty comfortable being close to him and touching him and being happy with him. Could he incorporate the kissing into the friendship? Could friends kiss? Mike knew that girl friends could, but could two boys? Wasn’t kissing just a romantic thing, though?

Mike wished Jonathan would get back to his own house, already. He needed Nancy’s advice.

 

>>><<<

 

Will closed his eyes against the buds of tears threatening to curl out and down his cheeks. He’d screwed everything up, hadn’t he? He clutched his pillow closer to his chest and dragged a fingertip slowly over his bottom lip.

It had felt so _nice_ to kiss Mike and the memory of it sent butterflies flickering around in Will’s stomach – but now Mike seemed so jumpy around him.

When Mike had pretended that the kiss hadn’t happened, Will had felt simultaneously relieved and crushed. On the one hand, he was happy that he hadn’t been completely rejected, but on the other, Mike obviously wasn’t responding the way he’d dreamed he would.

Maybe Will should get Jonathan to ask Nancy about what Mike thought about it. Will, of course, couldn’t ask him himself. That would be way too… presumptuous, and Will already felt like he’d overstepped his boundaries.

Trying to keep himself from thinking that he’d ruined his best friendship, Will studied the faint design on his bedsheets and blinked steadily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the fuel to my fire!  
> Also, as always, thanks for reading <3
> 
> \- M


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not happy yet, sorry. ;)

Nancy turned around from where she’d been “saying goodbye” to Jonathan with the front door nearly closed around her. Mike grabbed her forearm as soon as she stepped past the welcome mat and dragged her up the stairs.

“Mike, what the hell?” Nancy squawked indignantly, wrestling her arm out of Mike’s grasp.

“Just – it’ll only be a minute, Nance. Please?”

Nancy sighed, lips crooked in a frown. “Why? What do you want?”

“Your advice,” Mike admitted shamefacedly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said that to his sister.

It worked, though; Nancy was instantly interested and walked slowly over to her bedroom, Mike shuffling behind her, head down.

“Okay, spill,” she instructed, closing the door delicately and pinning her hands behind her as she leaned back on it. “What do you need advice about?”

Mike cut his eyes off to the left, finding one of Nancy’s old socks. His eyes were pinned on it as he spoke.

“A – uhm – friend problem… Well, not really a _friend_ problem, like a – a not-friend problem? Like, what to do when someone’s not really your friend anymore?”

Nancy’s eyes were soft as she gave her little brother a gentle half-smile.

“Did you fight with one of your friends?” she asked.

“No, no – not like that. I didn’t actually do anything, really, that’s – that’s kind of the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, um, should have done something but I didn’t and now I don’t know if I still can or should or what.”

“Um,” Nancy hesitated. “Mike, it’d be really a lot easier if you just told me what happened, so I can get the whole picture, you know.”

She said it gently, but it still made Mike fidget with anxiety.

“Mike...”

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, bringing his hands up to cover his quickly-reddening face. “I just – I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no need to be sorry,” Nancy assured him, coming over and rubbing a hand on his shoulder. “Just tell me what’s up.”

Mike murmured something into his hands.

Nancy’s face pinched a little in a frown. “What?”

Mike sighed. He mumbled something again and Nancy leaned her head down to hear him better.

“Mike, I can’t understand what you’re saying. Take your hands off your face.”

His hands lowered.

“What happened?” Nancy prodded.

After yet another moment’s hesitation, Mike huffed.

“Will kissed me.”

Nancy’s hand stilled for a half-breath in its circular path on Mike’s shoulder, but she recovered enough for it to be hardly noticeable. She kept her features schooled and reminded herself that Mike was nearly thirteen and that she had been kissed by people at that age, too.

“Okay. And?”

“And I didn’t do anything!” Mike croaked, visibly agitated. “I should have, I don’t know, at least said whether I wanted him to or not!”

“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s okay. What did _he_ do?”

“He just sat there and he looked so sad and I didn’t _do anything._ ”

“Did you _want_ to do something?”

“What – wh – I don’t know...”

“Okay,” Nancy said. “Do you think he’s upset?”

“I don’t know! That’s the problem – he won’t even look at me anymore. It shouldn’t be _my_ fault, I wasn’t the one to screw everything up.”

“He didn’t screw everything up,” Nancy corrected. “He just changed things. It doesn’t have to be screwed up if you don’t want it to be.”

“I don’t! But I don’t know what to do now.”

“Well, first, you have to figure out whether you want to stay just friends or if you want to – do more,” Nancy instructed delicately. “He opened a door for you and you now have the job of deciding whether to step through it.”

Mike huffed out a laugh at Nancy’s wording.

“Some door,” he grumbled.

“Hey, come on, give him some credit. He’s probably kicking himself right now for ever doing anything.”

“Yeah… Wait – do you think I broke his heart?” Mike asked awkwardly and with a flash of real fear in his eyes.

“Well,” Nancy began. “That depends. Sometimes people are okay with staying friends after opening the door, so to speak, and some people aren’t. You’ll have to find out.”

Mike dropped his head into his hands again and slumped his shoulders. Nancy slid her arms around her brother and waited as he struggled with his emotions, her mind blank.

Mike’s shoulders were shaking as he carefully wrapped his arms around Nancy.

Did he really have to decide this? Of _course_ he wanted to stay friends with Will – he didn’t want to _kiss_ him. But would Will even want to be friends any more? Mike felt a blooming tangle of doubt grow in the pit of his stomach. He hoped Will wouldn’t make him choose between losing a friend and – well, losing a friend a different way.

 

>>><<<

 

Will dropped his bike in the dusty parking lot behind the abandoned gas station several blocks down from where his mom worked. He wasn’t technically supposed to be out right now, and his mom would freak out later, but she was currently helping Jonathan fill out college application forms and wasn’t paying attention as the door slipped closed near-silently.

A sharp jab of loneliness hit him like a well-placed right hook. Will had chosen somewhere secluded because he didn’t know what he would do. He was fine with people seeing him cry – he had to be, given how often that occurred – but right now he wasn’t feeling much like crying.

The grey-red bricks of the old gas station were grimier than a shady bar’s restroom. Will found the grime didn’t do much for cushioning as he slammed his dry-skinned fist into the wall. Hissing, he drew the hand back. He hadn’t hit it very hard, but it still chafed his knuckles and made them flush pink.

Will hit the wall again, and again. After the fifth or sixth time his skin started to crack and bleed. After about fifteen, he noticed a faint bluish bruise beginning to wake up at the crest of his second knuckle. His mom would notice, and wouldn’t be very happy.

Screw it.

He’d ruined _everything_ with Mike – first by being all hedgy and avoiding him before Saturday and then by actually _kissing_ him – what even _was_ he doing with his life?

Mike surely didn’t like him like that; Will had seen the confused-hurt-scared look in his eyes after Will had pulled back.

This blowed. Will bit at his lip and fell forward, his head colliding somewhat uncomfortably with the wall. A wet sigh was dragged from him as he considered the fact that he was going to have to talk about this eventually, if not with Mike than with his mom. She wouldn’t take “school stress” as an appropriate answer for why he’d punched a wall until he bruised.

If only Mike could just _say_ something about this, then Will would be able to either crush his hope forever and finally or let it blossom, but this uncertainty was going to kill him.

A small voice in the back of Will’s head reminded him that he wasn’t exactly making it easy for Mike to talk to him, what with the whole “I’m going to ignore you and not even look at you anymore” thing that Will was doing, but Will shut it up soon enough. He didn’t need any more reason to blame himself for what would turn out to be The Worst Decision In His Life.

He stepped back from the wall and sighed. Rushing out the door in a flurry of emotion, he hadn’t remembered a coat and his hoodie was just a bit too thin to be comfortable in this weather. Will let his thoughts drift lazily to Thanksgiving in a week and then Christmas and all the mushy, gooey, good-for-fostering-romance feelings that would come with them. Would Mike even want to talk to him on Christmas? If only he hadn’t done anything, he could have waited for a cute little under-the-mistletoe moment – but, _no_ he just had to go and screw everything up in his patent way.

Will picked up his bike from where he’d dropped it on the ground. He needed to talk to someone but he didn’t know who. None of his friends, that’s for certain, and not his mom. She wouldn’t get it and would probably just tell him to either let Mike go or push forwards, neither of which he was very comfortable doing. It was a little silly, actually; he was going against what Mr. Clarke had said Newton’s first law of motion said: objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects at rest tend to stay at rest.

Will had started something rolling but now he was stuck in the same place, both he and Mike unwilling to push further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> (Also remember, this _will_ have a happy ending, so stick with me.)


	6. Chapter 6

Mike rolled restlessly in his sleep. His face pressed into the pillow as he squirmed and stuttered his torso uncomfortably. Deep in the hidden recesses of his mind, he was dreaming.

He was standing at the edge of a swimming pool – the pool in the basement of the school, actually. Turning around, Mike noticed he wasn’t alone: the stands were crowded with people and the water of the pool churned with arms and legs thrusting in and out of the water. Faceless, formless people spun around in the humid air of the room as he sat, feet dipped to his ankles in the water, on the tile lip on the edge of the pool.

Just as his head turned to the right, he noticed he wasn’t alone. Sitting beside him was another form, greyish in the dream-haze, and sitting identically to himself. It was Will.

The face of his friend materialized as Mike looked longer. Will was looking out over the busy pool, the faint flow of the overhead lights creating a halo of sorts on the top of his head. Mike just watched him, unsure of what else to do.

Time seemed to pass like a cloudy breath in the middle of Winter. The pool was nearly empty now and people were filing out of the room wrapped in towels and all of the same indistict shape and size. Mike noticed them leave, but kept his eyes on his friend. Will finally turned away from the water and stared at him with a blank, yet calm, expression. Faintly smiling, he leaned towards Mike and appeared to say something that Mike couldn’t quite catch.

“What?” Mike asked, voice sounding frail in the dream. Will didn’t appear to notice that anything was off, having continued his one-sided conversation as if Mike was responding appropriately the whole time.

“Will.” Mike reached out to put a hand on Will’s arm and found his movements lethargic and heavy.

Suddenly Will laughed, his head tilting back as the silence shuddered out of him. Mike paused, unsure of what to do.

He felt a chilly breeze across his ankles and looked down. No longer was he sitting on the edge of the pool, but rather, he was biking down a hill in the woods, the wheels bumping him up and down as he rattled all the way to his bones.

He tried to steer but it didn’t do anything to stop the root sticking up and jolting the front tire of his bike sharply to the left as he fell off to the right. His face landed in damp leaves and mud. Hearing another crash, he looked up and saw Will smack face-first into a tree, his bike twisting with the force of the impact.

“Will!” Mike screamed, scrambling to his feet. Cursing the slowness of his dream movements, Mike watched as Will lay, unmoving, at the base of the tree.

“Will, are you okay?” Mike crouched down beside Will and turned him over onto his back. Mike was expecting to see at least a scrape on his friend’s face, but instead Will’s face was fine – in fact, it seemed almost too perfect. The mud hadn’t even clung to his skin. Mike carefully pressed his fingertips into Will’s cheek, staring down at his friend in disbelief.

“Will,” he murmured, and Will’s eyes opened startlingly quickly. Mike pulled back a little and then Will vanished and he was left with empty hands, kneeling not on the wet ground of the woods but on the hard concrete sidewalk outside his school.

He woke up with a jolt.

 

>>><<<

 

Will spent the whole next day trying to pretend his knuckles weren’t sore. His mom had noticed the bruises and had nearly made him put a bandage on but relented when he said that it just made it worse.

Seeing Mike was really more painful than the slight ache in his hand. The dark hair that was always just in the corner of his vision and the bright circle of Mike’s face whenever he would watch Will, waiting for the moment that Will would meet his gaze. But he couldn’t, and he didn’t, and Mike looked away.

Will bit sharply at the edge of his lip.

He had tried to convince himself that he didn’t care if Mike broke off the friendship. He told himself he had other friends, that it would really be better than this unsteady almost-not-friends thing that they were doing now. But he couldn’t stop his treacherous heart from fluttering when Mike’s shoulder brushed against his as they walked side by side, neither one saying a word.

Will was so screwed.

 

>>><<<

 

At the end of the school day, when everyone was leaving either happy to go or dreading homework and assignments, Mike cornered Will and pulled him into a quiet hallway. Will, not expecting the sudden touch, looked at Mike and then quickly away, an acidic ball of worry biting away at his insides.

“We need to talk,” Mike said, letting his grip loosen but not fall all the way. He didn’t think Will would run, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility, either.

Will couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Instead, he simply followed Mike further out of the way of the crowd.

Mike’s hand was trembling on his arm and Will felt immediately and overwhelmingly guilty for putting his friend through this – if they even _were_ still friends.

“Look,” Mike began after they had retreated to an empty classroom and shut the door behind themselves. “I’m sorry.”

Will felt his guilt increase tenfold. “No, it’s not – it’s _my_ fault, Mike, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have – I – I’m sorry.” His voice was cracking and coming out all faulty and he didn’t know what to say.

If possible, Mike looked even more miserable than Will about the whole situation. He sighed and looked down at the ground, running an agitated hand through his hair.

“No, _I’m_ sorry. I could have – I could have said something, or given you some reaction. I was stupid.”

“It wasn’t _your_ fault, you couldn’t have,” Will’s voice faltered, “known I was going to do that.”

“Yeah, but I could have done something besides ignoring it and now we can’t even talk to each other anymore, I just – “ Mike huffed in frustration.

Will was silent for a moment, then spoke quietly. “I won’t do it again,” he assured, though he felt his stomach clenching at the thought.

Mike looked up, his eyes betraying his relief. A sharp pain stabbed through Will’s heart.

“Okay,” Mike said softly. “Um.” He paused. “Thank you.”

Will looked quickly down at the floor, not wanting Mike to see the hurt in his face.

“But – “ Mike added, seeing Will’s reaction. “I’m not mad at you. I don’t – I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

Will licked his lips as he considered the words, shifting from the pain of rejection to simply being resigned with himself.

“I did, though. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“No, Will, I just – it’s not… I don’t know how to say this.”

“Then don’t.”

“It’s important,” Mike protested. Will’s eyes lifted from the floor and met Mike’s with a harshness Mike hadn’t thought possible.  
“I don’t need you to tell me it was fine or that you didn’t mind, okay? I don’t want it to just be _fine,_ I want it to be nice and I want you to like it – like _me_. It’s not – I don’t want it to be something you just put up with.”

Mike didn’t know what to say. He had thought that talking with Will about this would clear stuff up and would lighten the awkward load on his shoulders, but all it did was dig this confusion deeper into him. Will looked away from him with a tame sort of disgust with his inadequacy, or at least that’s what Mike saw it as.

“Look, I’ll just – we’ll pretend this never happened and we’ll go back to before and I’ll – I’ll never do it again, okay?”

“No, I mean,” Mike floundered. “I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen, Will.”

“Then I’ll just leave you alone and you can carry on without me,” Will said simply, voice coming out higher than he’d intended.

Mike stared at him with his big blue eyes and Will couldn’t look at him. This was ridiculous, it would never work out between them again and Will was just going to have to get over it and find new friends.

“Will, I – I _do_ like you, just...”

“Not like that?” Will supplied.

“Yeah,” Mike nodded sadly. “I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t be. It’s fine.”

“I want to be your friend, I just – I don’t know if I want to, uh, kiss you.”

Will felt a tiny tug of hope at his words. Maybe Mike wouldn’t reject him completely.

“I want to be your friend, too,” Will told him, meeting Mike’s hesitant gaze with his own.

“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“What _do_ you want?”

Mike pushed himself off the wall and stepped a little closer to Will, who was leaning against a desk.

“I want to talk to you again. I want to hang out with you again. I want to be able to look at you when something funny happens in class and have you look back and know exactly what joke I’m thinking of again. I want to watch movies with you again and fall asleep on the couch and wake up with both my arms asleep again – or, actually, maybe not that last bit,” Mike grinned. “I want to be your friend again, Will.”

Will had let a smile creep onto his face as he listened to Mike. His cheeks were still flushed with residual embarassment, but he felt that golden glimmer of hope continue to build in his chest.

“I want to be your friend again, too, but – I really am sorry, Mike.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s – “ Mike caught himself before saying _fine_. “I forgive you.”

Will smiled.

“Want a hug?” Mike asked, extending his arms.

Will stepped over and hugged Mike, exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Relief tickled all over him and he felt giddy.

“Do you want to come over later?” Mike offered, arms still wrapped around Will.

“Sure, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

Will felt nearly perfect as they embraced each other. His heart still yearned for more but he wasn’t quite sure how – or _if_ – he should ask for it. The brush of Mike’s hair on his ear would have to be enough, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you liked that little bit of tension resolution, eh? Well, don't worry, there's still a little bit left to wrap up.  
> Thanks for reading!  
> \- M


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the 50+ kudos and 1,000+ hits on this, guys! It really means a lot to me!

“You _cheated_!” squeaked Mike as he watched Will pull over a large pile of Monopoly money over to his ever-growing pile.

“No, I didn’t. I’m just better than you,” Will retorted with a cocky grin.

Mike groaned and plopped his head in his hands. “I should just forfeit the game at this point.”

“Nah, that’d be boring. Keep playing.”

Mike shot Will a level stare over his hands. “You just want to keep winning.”

“So?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Will giggled. “At least Lucas isn’t here.”

“No, it’d be _better_ if Lucas was here, ‘cause then there’d be someone to challenge you.”

“Good point,” Will assented, smiling. “But still.”

Mike rolled his eyes and reached across the board for the dice.

Will watched as Mike rolled and moved a paltry four spaces along the board. His fingers gripped the little plastic game pieces delicately, like the stem of a particularly pretty flower. Will removed his gaze from Mike’s fingers as he was handed the dice.

“Lemme guess,” Mike started, hand over his eyes in theatrics as he pretended to predict the future. “Another ‘Free Parking.’”

Will grinned. “Almost.” His piece had landed just two spaces too far. “But I get a Chance card.”

“Of course you do.”

“Hey, at least this time you’ve actually got some property.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Mike groaned. The previous game they’d played, Mike had lost only three turns into the game after he’d landed on some ridiculously-priced property of Will’s and had to pay a huge tax. He hadn’t even passed Go or collected two-hundred dollars and he had shot Will such a long-suffering look that Will had nearly fallen over laughing. That had been nice, Mike thought. He enjoyed being able to hang out with Will again and fall into that easy back-and-forth rhythm together. This was simple and it was just what Mike wanted.

“It’s your turn now,” Will reminded him, a touch sarcastically. “If you want to take it.”

“Aw, shut up. It’s hard to tell when it’s my turn when you keep going for, like, twenty spaces,” Mike retorted.

Will just grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's done. I thought about including this little bit in the previous chapter, but it seemed like it would fit more off by itself. Again, I always appreciate comments, from constructive criticism to a simple 'nice story.' This is actually the first multi-chapter fic that I've bothered to finish, so, yeah. I'm feeling pretty pumped. I might go back and revise some of the chapters now that I've got the whole thing ironed out but then again I might just leave it.  
> Make sure to leave a comment if you want to see more Mike/Will stuff coming your way, especially if you have an idea for a fic. I'm thinking I'll do a Christmas one soon, just 'cause 'tis the season, and all.  
> Like always, thanks for reading!  
> \- M


End file.
